Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday February 24, 2004 @03:32AM
from the burns-are-serious dept.

26199 writes "The BBC is reporting on a novel use of Virtual Reality: as a distraction for burn victims who suffer excruciating pain during daily dressing changes. What's most interesting is that it actually works. Another use of VR discussed is in the treatment of patients suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; memories can be relived until they are accepted."

I have a feeling white noise would cause me a lot less trauma than those terrible radio stations that are always on in dentists' offices. Is it too much to ask to hear Comfortably Numb? It's THEMATIC, dammit!

This could present some fascinating implications for medicine... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is often one of the more difficult psychological disorders to treat, and is pretty much tops in the category of "anxiety-related" disorders. It would be a wonderful thing if it actually is useful in treatment.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is often one of the more difficult psychological
disorders to treat,

Difficult for whom to treat in what way?

PTSD is one of the easiest to treat in my experience (7 years as a clinical
hypnotherapist). You know exactly what the problem is (recurring memories),
and you know what the therapeutic outcome is (ability to remember whilst remaning
calm). Where's the difficulty?

and is pretty much tops in the category of anxiety-related
disorders.

tops??? Who modded this up?

It would be a wonderful thing if it actually is useful in treatment.

The drug companies have a near stranglehold [counterpunch.org]
over psychiatry. Without big money to fund the trials and marketing, it
will never reach mass-usage.

Call me a skeptic, but it seems like there's still a lot of room for potential damage from this. PTSD patients reliving memories until they're accepted? Doesn't that seem a little like forced traumatic recollection? I mean...yes, I'm sure it would have some desensitizing factor, but is that really a good thing?
I don't necessarily know that I'd be jumping to sign up...

Well, the trick of PTSD is that, for most people, the daily struggle to not remember (and avoid things that remind them) is much more traumatic. Imagine walking down a street, and a certain type of tree or smell in the air sets you off. Between having that and having one extremely painful session of emotion-dulling via reliving the experience, I'll take emotion dulling. At least it will bring a somewhat permanent conclusion.

What you do not want to get is an ambitious psychologist with 2 years of college and fresh councellor's certificate. (She is gonna cure your PTSD through re-living with you your trauma - no matter what's wrong with you).

What helps is a private talk with a friend or mom, lot of sleep and active program. I can't see how virtual reality videogame-like setting can do any good for PTSD.

"What helps is a private talk with a friend or mom, lot of sleep and active program. I can't see how virtual reality videogame-like setting can do any good for PTSD."
PThen you've never really had PTSD... by definition, it's something that time, supportive friends and activity can't help you deal with in a few months. It's not the presence of bad memories and flashbacks, it's their continued and incapacitating existence screwing up your life months later.

Exposure therapy is not pleasant, but it does tend to work. I don't know much about PTSD, but for anxiety disorders and phobias exposure is quite effective and virtual reality techniques have been becoming more and more popular for this. For treating someone with public speaking anxiety it's easier to get a virtual audience than to arrange for a bunch of people in a room...

I guess that depends what you mean by 'work.' I personally don't like the idea of getting over an emotional trauma by 'desensitizing' myself to it, as the article seems to suggest. Maybe I'm being sentimental, but it seems to me that what allows us to grow from painful experiences is having to come to terms with them, not getting desensitized.

Physical pain (like that of the burn victims) is one thing; emotional pain is something else entirely.

Physical pain (like that of the burn victims) is one thing; emotional pain is something else entirely. reason an organism feels physical pain, and the reason it feels emotional pain are pretty much the same: both serve to signal to the organism that its current activity, in its current environment, is detrimental to the organism. A burning pain in my finger tells me that either I should modify my activity -- by moving the finger --, or the the environment -- by moving the stove-top the finger is touching.

But I also suspect that the main reason that we see physical and emotional pain as being different is that we see emotional pain as uniquely human, something that separates us from "the animals".

I can't speak for anyone else, but I always saw it as the difference between a point source (physical pain) and lack thereof (emotional pain). I agree some people may take the human/animal point of view, but I wouldn't go so far as saying that physical and emotional pain are "the same". To put it in/. terms, W

I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure the reason I see physical and emotional pain as being different is because they don't feel anything alike one another; they're so dissimilar from a phenomenological perspective as to be almost incomparable....I'm not doing science when I'm worrying about my feelings, and there's no reason I should be.

Ah I get it.

You're one of those people who believes that you're conscious!

I mean, actually conscious, as opposed to being a pre-programmed, deterministic zombie with the

I personally don't like the idea of getting over an emotional trauma by 'desensitizing' myself to it, as the article seems to suggest.

Well, this article [sciencenews.org]
seems to indicate that fears like PTSD don't ever get totally "unlearned"; one has to learn how to suppress or overide the fear:

Such relapses are among the evidence indicating that even though extinction training suppresses the original fear conditioning, the fear memory remains within an animal's brain...
Quirk's group and other researchers have made t

"I personally don't like the idea of getting over an emotional trauma by 'desensitizing' myself to it, as the article seems to suggest. "

The term "desensitized" has a specific meaning in psychiatry and psychology: it does not mean "callous" or "indifferent". It means that a certain stimulus no longer creates as strong an emotional reaction as it once did. And for PTSD and phobias, those emotions are so strong and incapacitating (they replay at the original intensity or even higher, and with the added fe

Aye, PTSD is a type of Anxiety disorder... (I did a report on it once =) =) ) Treatments that work for Anxiety Disorders in general will tend to work for PTSD. PTSD is a hard one though, because of the things that can set it off, and how (at least up to now) the reliving of experiences had to be done pretty much in the domain of the mind or with a psychiatrist.

I mean...yes, I'm sure it would have some desensitizing factor, but is that really a good thing?

It's not the desensitizing factor, but rather the acceptance/understand factor. It would be a dissapointing tragedy of the worst kind indeed were you not able to, over the course of your life, eventually overcome and have sovereign dominion over your own body and mind.

I took an anxiety disorders class with one of the most famous voices in PTSD (McNally), so IANAP but IW a student of a psychologist.

One of the aspects of virtual reality treatments for phobias (we didn't study its use for PTSD) is that the patient is always accompanied by their psychologist, and they always have the option of opting out, even mid-simulation. And a nice fact of psychology is that if you have a feeling of control (whether you have control or not), you're less likely to run away. So while many may be too fearful to go through with the treatment, it happens in a supportive, controled environment, and that can be very helpful. The result may well be better than what we've got now, since PTSD's not easy to treat.

I really think I am going to regret bringing this up on Slashdot, as it is inevitably going to be misinterpreted.

But... victims of sexual abuse sometimes sometimes end up having sexual fantasies about that abuse.

I recommend the following [bettydodson.com] three [bettydodson.com] articles [bettydodson.com] by Betty Dodson [bettydodson.com] as she, I think, understands the issue well. WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT for those who care.

I was sexually abused repetdedly by my family dentist when I was six (he used a gas hose placed behind my head, but near my face, I can still hear the hissing sound...), I'm now 49, and have been dealing with the repercussions of those terrifying encounters for decades without actually realizing it (since my parents wouldn't believe that he was using gas on me, and I didn't know how to say I was being abused).

Since I started working with a good therapist my life has just blossomed!

It works because it is under the PATIENT'S control. They can rerun the images, repeatedly stopping at a spot that makes them uncomfortable until they are comfortable there, then run a bit farther the next time. Similar to the "fear of flying" seminars that start with looking at pictures of planes. You help them push into an uncomfortable zone until they learn that fear won't kill, it's

It's not like patients take their VR machines home with them and dope up when their doctor isn't looking:-P

In all seriousness though, it's not like the simulation is of Cindy Crawford consoling you about your amazingly traumatic experience. It's an ACTUAL SIMULATION of your amazingly traumatic experience. How likely is it that people would turn away from normal life for the comfort of that?

While it is certainly possible to develop addictions to VR, it is a bit of a mistake to compare them to addictions to painkillers. Most of the painkillers that you hear about in terms of addiction are the in the family of natural or syntetic opioids. These drugs cause physical changes inside the body that lead to a dependency on the substance itself. This physical dependency is what is usually being talked about when you hear the term "addiction" concerning these products. This dependency can be so strong, that if you cut off the chemical altogether, the patient can die.

Having said that the problem of addiction to the VR, as you mentioned, is a real one. People become addicted to all sorts of activities, gambling, extreme sports, and sex to name a few.

VR is realtively new, and being used for a treatment for pain should undergo studies to check to see if addiction may be a problem, or if there are any other adverse effects...like the flaming slashdotter!

Is not usually life-threatening (you'll certainly wish you were dead while you're going through it, but you don't usually die).

Much more dangerous are the withdrawl syndromes associated with Alcohol and Benzos (diazepam, lorazepam, alprazolam... aka Valium, Ativan, and Xanax, respectively). Those folks have a much harder go of it than heroin and painkiller addicts, at least physiologically speaking... they get autonomic hyperactivity, refractory seizures, hallucinations... there's a very significant mortality if not medically treated.

Stimulants tend not to have such a severe withdrawl syndrome, at least in a life-threatening sense. I'm referring to cocaine, methamphetamine... there's a crash when you come down, and they can deplete your body's stores of catecholamines and other neurotransmitters, leading to periods of agitation, depression, insomnia, etc, but that's typically after longer term use.

A psychological addiction to VR should be a very minor issue compared to any of the above.

as far as I'm concerned... if a VR simulation takes a patient's mind off their pain, God bless 'em.

Listen... I've spent my share of time in burn units, where the morphine flows like a mighty river; VR is far preferable to using drugs, with all their attendent side-effects. Also, contrary to popular wisdom, addiction isn't usually a problem... only a very very small percentage of burn unit denizens ever develop an addiction to their narcotics after they recover, and there's large studies and good research

... this part of the article rubs me the wrong way:In collaboration with Cornell University in New York, Hoffman has built a virtual reality programme that is a simulation of the events of 9/11 designed to desensitise the patient to the events of that day.
It just seems too "Clockwork Orange" to me...:-/

Unfortunately, I think CNN's constant running of WTC clips subtitled "American Under Attack" has already had this desensitizing effect. The images don't make me retch the way they used to. Is this the passage of time, or the effects of seeing the same thing several thousand times?

Every time I start listening to some chowder-head talking about how 9/11 was not such a big deal, I remember sitting there in a parking lot with my surgical team, waiting/hoping there'd be some survivors pulled from the rubble that we could take care of...

I'm not a PTSD candidate by any means, but 9/11 still bothers me, and I frankly hope it always will. When you witness the gruesome death of thousands of people and at some point in time it all

I didn't wretch the first time. No, I'm not a horrible monster, I just take everything in stride. Sure I played doom2 but I don't think that did it. I haven't seen a lot of scary movies so it's not that.
Must we have an irrational reaction to a disgusting crime to be human?

Scientists today discovered that Virtual Realities can dull the excruciating pain of social rejection suffered by millions of geeks and nerds on a daily basis. It also helped them recover from the Post Traumatic Stress of Wedgies, Wet Willies and the dreaded Rear Admiral. Lead Scientist Nelson Muntz claims 9 out of 10 nerds enjoyed a Virtual Rear Admiral far more than the real version.

I'm British and i know what a Wedgie is, but i've never (AFAIK) experienced a Wet Willie - care to enlighten me?:) Also have you heard of the Atomic Wedgie - it's when they manage to get your paints hooked right over your head. Painful - i've heard, and yes, it *is* possible. Plus of course, there's always Posting - three men, two legs (apart), one post.

OK, so everyone was asking what the hell a rear admiral was. It wasfirst mentioned in 1F04, last year's hallowe'en special.

> Bart: Milhouse...Milhouse, wake up, quick! Look out the window.>Milhouse: No way, Bart. If I lean over, I leave myself open to wedgies,> wet willies, or even the dreaded rear-admiral!>-- Covering his ass, so to speak, "Treehouse of Horror IV"

Just remember, as with all emergant technologies, there are ups and downs, depending at who's disposal the technology is used. This could be, and sounds like it is, helpful towards medical purposes, and as others have mentioned, sure it could have problems with making a person desensitized.

I say, give it time, take it slowly, and just hope for the best.

Speaking of downsides, I can't imagine what the government is thinking about doing with this sort of stuff:P

Now, I wonder how interactive these VR sessions are. Could the burn patients injure themselves by getting too into it? How "real" are these memories for the PTS patients? Will they fell like observers, or participants?

Wake up bro, science always follows fiction. Think of an endeavour or a discovery and you'll be able to find someone who fantasised about it at sometime.

Leonardo Da Vinci, HG Wells, Jules Verne, George Orwell... need I go on? Helicopters, men on the moon, deep sea exploration, dystopian societies and whatever else you care to mention have all been "predicted" by dreamers way before they became reality.

Tad Williams (brilliant author though he is) would hardly be the first writer to find part of his fiction

..how is this any different from when you were a child, your mother distracting you from injuries with a lollie/toy? I know it used to work on me, and it sure works on my girls.
It seems a bit of a reach to claim this is anything new.

I am fearing that the sue-happy United States will take this too far someday.
"Yes. I am suing the following landmarks: Colorado River, Niagra Falls, Victoria Falls, and the Atlantic Ocean shore located 2 miles south of Atlantic City for knowing full well the use of white noise generated at these locations were addiciting but still distributing these addicting items to minors, the handicapped, and the elderly"

When my mouth was aching like hell after a trip to the awful dentist (orthodontist), playing iD's finest kept my mind off the pain very effectively. No time to whimper when you're fragging your friends:)

They don't see a damn thing within 10 inches of their face and hardly hear anything when they're pushing. On top of that, epidural will not be administered at the last stage because it takes some time to kick in. No fucking polar bear dancing naked will distract a woman from feeling "the bowling ball" going through her cervix and vagina and tearing it apart.

Although the original poster was making a weak joke, he's not far from the mark.

When our first kid was born, we did the whole childbirth class thing, followed all the advice, etc. One of the things we did which seemed really corny at the time was to take along some object to focus on during contractions to distract from the pain.

It seemed pretty silly at the time, so the second time around, we didn't bother with the 'focus item'. The first time, my wife went through with only a bit of local at the very

I've bought into this idea ever since the day I was curious and watched a mosquito land on my shoulder, get into its stance and pierce my skin. I was really shocked at how much it hurt in that one instance.

I remember seeing a report on this probably around 10 years ago. The technology was in its infancy but was being used to adjust people with a fear of heights. A link with information along these lines (found it in 2 seconds on google) is here:

The memory playback is a nice (but scary) idea, but I don't think it could ever be implemented correctly. If the plan is to play memories until a patient accepts what happened, a new memory program/video/experience would have to be generated for every patient.

A shooting victim would need a different experience than a burning building survivor, who would need a different experience than the train wreck survivor that comes in the next day. Since the situations would have to be fairly specific for each individual case, this would be nearly impossible to implement.

Also, if each different video/experience is produced, why not play it on a television? Even a big screen, if you want. I know the goal of the VR is to immerse the subject in the virtual world, but I don't know that it would be that much more effective than good old fashioned photos, videos, and psychiatry.

It literally took me years to "get over" being cheated-on/dumped by a long-term ex-girlfriend. I'd say it could probably be classified as PTSD, and it had the usual side effects including depression, anxiety, and so on. I'm not convinced that re-living me visiting her workplace when she said she was working late but was really playing volleyball with her new b/f is going to help things. I don't think that seeing her slutting around with local personalities is g

While VR pain relief may work to some degree initially, once the
novelty wears off, or on an off-day when you just can't get interested
in its "game", you'll probably find yourself screaming with pain.

Should I ever find myself in such an unfortunate situation, may God have
mercy on me and set me up with an MD who will prescribe adequate opioid
pain relievers. Currently that is the only thing that works, period.

Too often these days MDs are paranoid about prescribing opioid pain
killers, what with the DEA breathing down their necks. See The DEA's
Disastrous War Against Pain-Treating Drugs [mapinc.org] for
example. It is customary to
encourage the patient to grin and bear it or to seek pain relief through
alternative therapies like meditation etc.

I myself have had minor surgery were they'll give you plenty of local
anesthetic during the actual procedure; then they send you home with
instructions to take tylenol. When the anesthetic wears off, the pain
kicks in. It is only by whining and complaining that they'll prescribe
an opioid painkiller, and unless you go to the ER (and sometimes even if you
do) you'll be in pain for hours more until all the paperwork and
procedures are done to get the prescription filled.

Chronic pain patients are in a real bind these days.
They cruelty towards them by denying them long-term opioid pain
relief is unspeakable.

you should see it from my perspective... I often get patients who have chronic pain, and show up in my ER looking for medication refills.

I often can't help them, or at least, not the way they want... some of these people are prescribed monster doses of Oxycontin, MS-contin, Methadone, you name it. I treat acute pain in the ER, but I can't refill someone's 90-count bottle of 80mg Oxycontin tablets; it's inappropriate practice. I'm not trained or credentialed in chronic pain management, I've never seen the

i'm on the other side: i'm a patient who works with other patients. Fibromyalgia, for example. And the first thing that they come crying for is, "How do i get my doctor to prescribe pain meds?"

The first answer that we have to give- HAVE to, because we don't know them, either, is, "You don't."

Plain and simple, unless they are doing EVERYthing else- the physical therapy, the exercise, the effort, the tests for concurrent/comorbid conditions, they shouldn't be given pain meds. It's a tough rule but a vital

One of my friends is a practitioner of Christian Science. If I understand what he tells me, Christian Science teachs that we experience the world because we choose to give it all a realty. In other words, it's all in your head. Most would agree there is some figuratively truth to this, but Christian Science takes it literally and uses the idea as the central component of their system of health and well being by wrapping this metaphysical layer around the bible. I wonder how he would react to the article. On the one hand, there is validation in the fact that we can channel positive perception into better health and healing. On the other hand, Christ and Christianity is completely unnecessary as implemented by the doctors featured in the article. I've tried to point out you don't need the biblical stuff in numberous conversations, but now there is something concrete I can show him.

I've tried to point out you don't need the biblical stuff in numberous conversations, but now there is something concrete I can show him.

Yeah, that'll work. Who was it who said you can't reason somebody out of a position they didn't reason themselves into? If your friend's faith is strong enough, he'll maintain his beliefs to his (possibly early) grave, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. That's how it works.

It just happened I wrote yesterday about the usages of VR to treat fears.
A company named Virtually Better [virtuallybetter.com], based in Georgia, creates virtual environments mixing video images and computer-generated ones to help people deal with their fears and anxieties. In this article [nytimes.com], the New York Times (free registration) writes this costs only 10 percent more than conventional therapy. The newspaper adds that therapists using this system claim a success rate exceeding 90 percent. Virtually Better "has created scenes of a glass elevator and a bridge to address fear of height, an airplane cabin for those who fear flying and a thunderstorm to diminish fear of bad weather." Other environments address the treatment of substance addiction or of post-traumatic stress. A (Virtual) Therapist's Dream [weblogs.com] contains selected excerpts. It also includes images on the virtual airplane environment.

Some years ago I wrote a small book for the V.A. for spouses and children of veterans with PTSD. I found in talking to soldiers and other victims of PTSD that survivor guilt was such a crippling part of the disorder. So, I found this snippet encouraging in the article: One patient overcame her sense of guilt at running away from the scene and failing to help others who subsequently died.

If this treatment can truly help deal with survivor guilt, then it is a very useful therapy.

"in the treatment of patients suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; memories can be relived until they are accepted."

So... a guy having been tortured should be VR-tortured until he accepts it? Or someone having killed a bunch of kids in a war should relive that experience in VR until he accepts it? Color me sceptic, but I'm not sure thats a great idea.

I've worked in burn units, and had a couple of deep tissue burns as a kid, and even if this only works on 5% of the patients, it's worth using, starting NOW!

It doesn't add anything to the load of medications they are already on.

It has little chance of undesireable side effects, such as the breathing depression of opiates.

If it minimizes stress, it minimizes the biochemical load of stress hormones that interfere with healing.

It gives the patient control over something in an otherwise helpless situation (you have very few choices in a burn unit except maybe what to order for lunch, and that's hospital food)

It gives sensory stimulation in a very DULL environment of limited visitors, staff in biosuits for your protection... nothing to do but think about how bad it hurts, contemplate your chances of permanent disfigurements, and hurt

Creating more VR worlds for those that aren't helped by the action games would be a logicla next step.

... it has to do with attention, specifically divided and focused attention. I've replicated some VR experimental work using VR vs. other techniques for redirecting attention. The techniques work according to how deeply the person can immerse themselves into the alternate stimulus context. Hypnosis is extremely good, but some people are better at hypnosis than others. Manipulating a physical object is exactly as effective as manipulating an object in VR (I got the same results with $20 worth of wooden blocks that someone else got with an SGI Indigio and complete submersion VR tank, worth $40K).

The one technique I haven't got to try yet is implicit learning under anesthesia, which seems to work like hypnotic suggestion, but doesn't rely on the person's own ability; it works the same for everyone.

Whenever you see any study claiming "VR does so and so" question why it took VR to do so, and what else might also work. There's nothing magical about VR that almost certainly can't be done as well for cheaper.

That also poses a point about the great benefits for Burn Victims... I've been focusing on the PTSD part of it a bit too much...

Finding a way to distract patients from pain is a far greater solution than medication. No side effects, no expensive or addictive substances to use (well, those who really like MMORPGs would disagree with my "addictive" statement, but...), and in general would be preferred over medication.

I mean, this daily dressing routine... it takes only a fraction of the day. Giving them morphine for it then ruins the majority of their day, as they spend it in a near-lifeless stupor. And without anything, those few minutes of the day would no doubt be torturous...

I can tell you I just got out of the hospital after having a tension pnuemothorax (life threatening)and I can tell you that morphine is about as useless as a nun with two tits. Might as well just smoke some 7up (the *good* addicts will know what I mean).

Morphine is useless. It does nothing but make you want better drugs. The pain is still there. A good hit of some BC Bud would do much better. Plus, I can't walk straight after morphine.

Morphine is so far the most popular (because effective, easily administered, and with the fewest side-effects) pain-killer, for big pains (not only in the ass).

Maybe they just didn't give you enough, though. A patient should *always* ask for pain-killers when he needs some. We live in societies where it shouldn't be normal to suffer anymore, with all the stuff we have at our disposal...

Wow - that's quite a medical breakthrough you have made. I'm sure the global medical community would like to hear more about this as it seems this idea never occured to them to use painkillers before.

Okay, enough with the sarcasm. If you had paid closer attention while reading the article you would recall this:

"Dr Hunter Hoffman, research fellow at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, has tested his virtual worlds on victims of burns injuries who suffer excruciating pain during their daily dressing changes which conventional drug therapy fails to control."

Have you heard about NLP (neurolinguistic programming)? NLP is a therapy method which is based on reliving a traumatic period - and yes, this is used on PSTD patients, such as refugees from war ravaged countries (see Dr. Richard Bolstad's work), or rape victims. The basic idea of NLP is that the patient replays the traumatic event inside his/her head multiple times, while varying the playback speed, colours, pitch of the sound et cetera. The goal is to replay the event in such a way that it is so ridiculous

I have three books on NLP - Frogs into PRINCES (by Richard Bandler and John Grinder - ISBN 0-911226-19-2), TRANCE-formations (by same - ISBN 0-911226-23-0), and Using Your Brain for a CHANGE (by Richard Bandler - ISBN 0-911226-27-3). These were all published between 1979-1985 - and are easily among the most strange of books I have in my occult collection.

I found them at a garage sale at a house in Escondio, CA - being sold by a family that as far as I could tell, spoke no english at all. The titles and the covers looked interesting, and the subtitles detailing "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" seemed like they would fit right into my occult collection anyhow, so I purchased them.

As I said, the covers were interesting - all of the book's covers have a strange, near psychedelic flavor to them - fanciful images of dragons and wizards (though the last book, which has the latest publication date, drops this look in favor of a more refined outdoor scene of gloomy mountains in the backdrop, a green meadow with colorful flowers and a waterfall in the foreground, with a "transparent" profile of a person where everything is tinted "lighter" through it). I only got about halfway through what I thought was likely the first book (being of the earliest publication date), "Frogs into PRINCES". I believe this to be the only book I have ever read that screwed with my mind, in a very strange way.

As I was reading it, I was also trying to use some of the techniques, because they seemed like very powerful tools, for both internal and external use. As an example, one of these tools involved recognizing body language, and using that in opposition to what you were saying (simple example, nodding your head "yes" while discussing something in a negative tone, or disagreeing with someone) - this was a tool by which you could convey information to others to stimulate them to perform certain things in a certain manner. There were other techniques of a similar nature, some which you could use internally.

As I read, my SO (now my wife) was telling my that I was changing - that I acted differently since starting to read the book. She asked me to stop reading the book, which I did, because I could feel this change as well - and it bothered me. After I stopped reading the book, I felt that a curtain or something had lifted, like a slight fog or something.

Now, I realize that this is just a anecdotal story, and that it carries no weight from an objective standpoint - take it as you will. I have kept these books, though, and I intend one day to try reading them again, knowing my prior experience.

What you describe of NLP I never got to in the books - perhaps it was in a later chapter or in one of the other volumes which I didn't read? The technique, though, sounds like something from NLP. I still don't know what or why these books are - they seem like self-help books, but if they tend to affect others like they did me, I wonder just what NLP really is about - and what its ultimate use could be? Personally, I wasn't looking for a self-help or self-change book - but I was interested in the idea of "hacking my mind", so to speak (yeah, I know that sounds like a contradiction. I was only looking for changing myself in a controlled manner for the hell of it and to learn how to do it in a different manner, not because I felt I needed it - probably not a good reason, now that I look back on it)...